liquid

This might seem somewhat trivial, irrelevant or silly to some of you, but as someone who is only beginning to scratch philosophy I do sincerely wonder what the 'answers' are to the cliche conundrums. By this, I mean:

1) If a tree falls in a forest when no-one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

2) What is the sound of one hand clapping?

and so on... others would be very welcome.

Jamie_L

Define sound.

Define clapping.



Jamie

tronvillain

1) If by "sound" you mean a wave of air pressure capable of being detected by the human ear, then a tree falling in the forest will make a sound whether there is anyone to hear it or not.

2) The answer is either "nothing", some kind of "swishing", or that "whap" you get when you hit your palm with your fingers.

[ March 08, 2002: Message edited by: tronvillain ]</p>

Crito

Sound is simply a mechanical, compressional wave whose frequency is in our audible range. Movements such as vibrations or collisions create such waves; and in the case of a tree falling to the ground, such a wave will be produced. Or, if this does not convince you, place am amplified microphone out in the woods and hook it up to a data logger. You will then see for youself that sound waves exist!
Again, if this clapping is making movement, you're creating a compressional wave of some sort--it just might be too faint to hear! And, as Jamie said, you might want to describe what "one hand clapping" means, unless you're asking a question concerning a topic that you have no clear idea of.

John Page

Control experiment. Get a microphone with a long lead and a sound recorder.

Incomplete sentence. One hand clapping what?

Next.....

x-member

If a tree falls in the forest an nobody is there to hear it, you can detect its fall by the quick arrival of environmental protests blaming the falling of the tree on globalization.

Jon

beachbum

'One hand clapping". Is that from an old Shelly Berman routine?

Synaesthesia

If there is a canister of phenol-thio-urea in the woods is it one quarter bitter?

tronvillain

It's either bitter, or not bitter, depending on what sensory system you specify.

Jonsey3333

Has everyone seen that Simpson's episode? Where Bart is playing Flander's kid Todd in the mini golf tournament? Bart solved the answer to one-hand clapping.

-Mike